Toads and Tadpoles

This week Grayson and I went out on Friday night and spent a happy hour catching toads. There's a creek in Norman along which the city has built a lighted concrete walkway. When the lights come on at night, the toads come out to catch the junebugs. They make fat, easy pickins for those who just want to catch and release.

We caught several, as you can see. No really huge ones, but the last one we caught was pretty chunky. Why is it so fun to catch and hold a toad? Is it their soft bellies? Their bumpy skin? I'm a big fan of their funny, long-toed feet, myself. but I think maybe it's just the amazement of the miraculous little alien life inside them that attracts us. They inhabit a world in which we are a bizarre and inexplicable force. Yet they don't seem particularly terrified by us. Maybe these toads were just drunk on junebug juice, but they didn't exactly stampede away in terror when we approached. Mostly they hopped a few feet away sort of lethargically, and eventually seemed to juts resign themselves to being picked up and photographed. Then they went back to being toads. We tried to reward each one we captured by putting him down within convenient tongue-snapping range of a fat junebug.

They can snap up a bug so fast you can't even see their tongues move.

Earlier this week we went back to that spot during the day to catch a few tadpoles. The tadpoles were few and far between this time. Last year around this time we saw hundreds of huge fat bullfrog tadpoles in this same creek. But this year, only a few tiny black tadpoles were to be found. We scooped up seven of them and brought them home. Sadly, they expired yesterday. Don't know what we did wrong. We don't have much luck with reptiles and amphibians, I have to say. Think we'll stick to furry things, and things that can survive a nuclear war, like Triops.

Tonight we have to get Grayson's clothes cleaned and packed and ready for tomorrow's trip to Dallas with his dad. Gray is putting the boy on a plane all by himself to El Paso to meet his grandmother for a week of fun in Ruidoso with his cousins. Last year he had a really wonderful time, and he's looking forward to it... with some minor trepidation regarding the solo flight. He did it last year just fine, though, so I'm sure he'll be okay. Certainly I will be more relaxed about it. I was anxious last year about putting my baby on a plane all alone. This year, just like with the camp experience, I'm more relaxed. I'm sure he will be, too, when the time comes.

And me? What will I do for two weekends in a row without my boy?

I have no idea.